What Annie Knew
by Telenovela15
Summary: Annie is 8 1/2 going on 80. She is ,like, way too introspective. Follow her thoughts and try not to get too lost in them...
1. Chapter 1

I

Mom's friend Rayanne was a witch. Annie was absolutely positive of that. Annie knew all about witches. They wore black cloaks and robes and had wild, messy hair sometimes with curls, sometimes long and straight. Witches had pale white skin and black teeth. Rayanne wore layers of colorful skirts, tie-dye shirts and masses of beads and charms but she definitely wore a black coat and had long white hair with streaks of purple through it. Rayanne had white skin and wore pink eye shadow. And she had magic teeth that she could take out and clean in the kitchen sink! Witches rode brooms (Rayanne drove a green Volkswagen) and put spells on people. Annie hoped Rayanne wouldn't put a spell on her. She had already bewitched Annie's cat Jet. When Rayanne came to their house, Jet would magically appear and rub against Rayanne's leg. Sometimes Jet would jump onto Rayanne's lap and sit purring while Rayanne told Mom's fortune with her tarot cards. Tarot cards were another clue that Rayanne was a witch- she could read the future. She would sit in their kitchen and start humming and chanting, closing her eyes with her arms outstretched and calling for the spirits to guide her in her readings. Annie was terrified by all this and cringed behind her Mom, clinging to her sweater. Mom obviously didn't believe in witches. She would just laugh and tell Annie not to be such a scaredy -cat. Rayanne was just kidding and the reading was just for fun. Annie would look suspiciously from her place behind her mother and dare to glimpse furtively at Rayanne. Rayanne always saw her and would wink before rolling her eyes toward the ceiling, "Shhh!", she would say in a deep voice with her finger to her lips, "The spirits can smell your fear!" This generally caused Annie to flee the kitchen and hide under the stairs, blocking her ears with her hands and hoping that the spirits didn't answer back. Then Jet would come sniffing after her and look at her with his yellow eyes full of ghoulish wisdom. Yes, Jet definitely was under a spell and Rayanne was definitely a witch!

II

Annie would have to find more clues if she was to prove to everyone that Rayanne was a witch. She had once seen this show on TV about how if you wanted to prove someone was a witch you had to test if they could float in water. Annie decided to investigate by sounding witnesses to see if Rayanne could float.

"Can Rayannne swim?" she asked Nick one day on the way home from school.

"What? How should I know?" was all the response she got.

Nick was Annie's brother. Nick was 16 and in high school. Nick was on the football, swim and basketball teams. People said Nick was a jock. Nick was cool.

"Well," Annie decided to be logical, "You know Rayanne way longer than me so you could have seen her float, I mean swim, before me".

Nick just shook his head, "You're weird. Why couldn't I have a normal kid sister? Come on, Snoopy, Mom will have feed out for you in the barn."

Annie found being called Snoopy and allusions to her horsiness insulting- she was well aware she was a little nosey and that she was tall and gangly for her age. She hated how she was always put in the back row for school photos and was described as bony by her family. If Annie had a superpower, she decided it would be invisibility- then she definitely wouldn't stand out! Anyway, Nick was pretty horsey himself- 16 and 6'. Plus he had to eat a special protein diet for sports' training, Coach said so. Whenever he had a weird food requirement or needed extra helpings , he said it was because "Coach said so". Annie's Mom would sigh and say they were both eating her out of house and home. After dinner, Annie decided she would have a nap, do her homework and then investigate further. Napping was a luxury she still enjoyed because she was 8 1/2 and 'the baby of the family'. Normally Annie hated being called 'the baby' but today she was tired and the privilege of napping was too good to miss. She liked napping in her Mom's bed because it was bigger than hers so she could stretch out under Mom's huge quilt. Mom's room also smelled of perfume and lavender. Sometimes Annie would steal a few sprays of Mom's perfume and pretend she was Scarlett O'Hara in her boudoir. Annie loved the word 'boudoir'. It was what rich, pretty girls in hooped dresses called their bedrooms. Annie knew all about Scarlett O'Hara. Once when she was staying at Grandma's for Thanksgiving she had seen this movie with her in it and this guy with a weird moustache had gone off to fight the Yankees and Scarlett's best friend got sick and then Atlanta had burned down. Annie felt sorry for Scarlett- it must have really sucked to lose all her best dresses and jewels in a fire. Annie always made sure she turned off the lights in her room before she went out -she wasn't going to lose all her possessions like Scarlett had. During her nap, Annie dreamed that she was helping Scarlett to gather all her dresses and shoes for a big party before the fire. Cinderella was going to be there so Scarlett wanted to look her best. Scarlett chose a pink dress with little green flowers on it and some bright yellow shoes. Then Jet had appeared and turned a pumpkin into a coach with four Persian cats as horses. Scarlett thanked Jet and Annie and set off for the ball. Then suddenly a big storm cloud loomed on the horizon, there was a crack of thunder and Rayanne jumped down from the cloud with her broom! Annie awoke with a start! She blinked, sat up and decided if danger was close at hand. No, she was still in Mom's room and the light coming in the window was a little dimmer so it must be late evening. Ok, Rayanne was nowhere to be seen. Annie decided to check under the bed just in case. No, no evil presences there. Next, Annie chose to brave herself for further investigation by spraying some of Mom's perfume on her wrists. Surely, witches didn't like nice smells, right? Rayanne generally smelled of weird tobacco that gave Annie a headache. Annie inhaled the scent of lemon and flowers that came from Mom's perfume. Then she decided to match the perfume with some 'jewels' to be more like Scarlett at the ball. Mom's jewelry box was bright red and made of leather. Mom said it was "an heirloom" which meant that you had to wait till someone old died before you could use it. Annie opened the box and wondered if she should wear Mom's blue beads or the amethyst ring. She couldn't wear Mom's hooped earrings because she didn't have pierced ears. Annie had begged Mom to allow her get her ears pierced at the mall like all the' teenager' girls but Mom said no. She would have to wait till she was 14. Why 14? Annie had wanted to know but parents were weird about rules and Mom had said that she would be more 'mature' then. 'Mature' meant grown-up. Annie's friend Kayla had pierced ears and she was two months younger. Plus Kayla definitely wasn't mature because Annie knew she still wet the bed. It was useless explaining all this to Mom, though, as adults couldn't be reasoned with. Finally, Annie opted for both the beads and the ring. She was just examining Mom's collection of their baby teeth (given to Mom by the Tooth-fairy for safekeeping and kept in a heart-shaped old ring box) when she found some papers underneath she hadn't noticed before. Annie took them out and began to unfold and read the first one. It was Nick's birth certificate- oldish and yellow with his name written in black ink. Annie had seen this before and teased Nick about his middle name which was Isaac. Annie thought only old men were named Isaac. Her own birth cert was next, slightly less yellow and with less faded ink. 'Anne Patricia'. She knew that was Grandma's name so it didn't matter if it was old-fashioned. The last paper was even older than Nick's- much yellower and with weird squiggly writing. Annie was learning cursive at school but this was different. It was the kind of writing her cousin Stuart had- really hard to read with lots of ink spots. Annie squinted and moved to the window to try to read it better. "Dear Angela, I know in the past…..", it began. It seemed to be pretty disgusting really. Lots of things like "I'd go it hell for you" and "I hate a pen because it's not you". "Gross!", thought Annie, "How could a person be a pen?" It was clearly some lovey-dovey letter like a Valentine's card. Annie had found one Nick's girlfriend had written him and that was equally gross. How could Nick be sweet like sugar when he always smelled of sweat or peanut butter? Annie decided love letters made no sense. But the weirdest thing about the letter was the signature. She knew 'Angela' was Mom's name but who was 'Jordan Catalano' and why was he writing disgusting letters to her Mom? Annie reflected for a few minutes before the facts hit her with their full force! Annie was absolutely positive that Mom was having an affair with this 'Jordan'! Annie knew all about affairs…

III

Affairs were these things that happened all the time on TV shows. Annie's favorite TV show was 'The Bold and the Beautiful'. She was only allowed watch it when she was on vacation from school or ill. On 'The Bold and the Beautiful' people had affairs all the time. It meant that this really old rich guy with a beach house and a red Porsche or Ferrari was married to this really pretty young blonde lady with a mini-skirt and botox or something and then she kissed this young guy who was a doctor or a consultant or a contractor and then she fell in love with him and the next thing the old guy is standing at the door of his beach house while the young wife takes her suitcases and gets into the young doctor's car (normally another Porsche) and drives off. Then the old rich guy calls his lawyer in LA and says that he has no pre-nup (like a letter for giving money to the young lady) but the lawyer says not to worry, he's sure she'll settle out of court to avoid scandal. Annie wasn't sure what 'scandal' meant but she thought it had something to do with photos on the Internet and Us Weekly. She was definite about affairs though, on TV they always lead to divorce! Divorce was the scariest word Annie knew (apart from 'witch' and some bad words Nick said to ESPN when his team lost). Kayla's parents were divorced. This meant that Kayla's Mom and Dad lived in different houses and Kayla only saw her Dad on Thursdays and every second weekend. Kayla also had a stepmother who wasn't as evil as Cinderella's but still wasn't as nice as Kayla's Mom. Kayla's stepmother didn't wear mini-skirts but she did do yoga and made Kayla eat 'macrobiotically' which meant that Kayla couldn't eat candy at her Dad's house. Kayla said that divorce sucked but at least her parents didn't yell all the time now. Annie was confused. Her own parents hardly ever yelled except at Nick when he didn't clean his room or take out the trash. Annie couldn't remember Dad ever raising his voice to her or Mom. Even the time Dad had taken Nick and her to a football game when Annie was four. Dad had been mad at her that day but he didn't yell. Annie had gotten bored with all the noise in the stadium and decided it would be better to run out on the field and see what was taking the teams so long to appear. Dad and Nick must have chased after her because Dad caught her just as she was about to collide with this huge guy wearing a helmet and shoulder pads. Dad had said what she had done was very dangerous and she could have got trampled by the players. Nick had told her she was lucky she hadn't broken her arm or had to go to the ER. When Annie heard about the ER she knew what she had done was really bad. She said she was sorry and Dad had bought her cotton candy on the way home. Nick had been warned not to tell Mom about Annie's lucky escape but he had blabbed anyway and Mom had spoken to her at dinner about always sitting still at football games and holding her or Dad's hand when crossing the street. So, if even when she did something wrong, Mom and Dad didn't yell, why was Mom having an affair and when would she be getting a new stepmom?

IV

Because she knew how many affairs happened on TV, Annie was always on the lookout for strange men who talked to her Mom. Once when she and Mom were at the printer's collecting Nick's new team jerseys for school, this strange man had started talking to Mom. He had talked about his vacation to Italy or somewhere and Mom had said how much she had enjoyed visiting Rome with Aunt Danielle and Grandma when she was in college. Then the man had said how he and his family were going to Rome again that summer to visit his cousin. This was all too much for Annie! If this guy was going to continue to talk to Mom and eventually invite her to Italy, he'd better know that Mom was married!

"When's Dad getting home from work today?" Annie had asked loudly while pulling at Mom's purse to get her attention.

Mom looked puzzled, "Don't worry there's lots of time till dinner. Dad won't be home till 6:30".

Annie resented that Mom didn't take the hint and was thinking that Annie was merely hungry rather than trying to save her parents' marriage.

A few minutes later she tried again, "I hope Dad doesn't miss dinner if he's gets stuck in traffic".

Again Mom's perplexed expression followed by assurances that there was hardly any traffic today. Eventually the man had collected his order and Annie and Mom had been next in line. Annie made sure the man got into his car, left and was relieved he hadn't asked Mom for her phone number. Annie knew all about phone numbers. Maybe if she checked Mom's cell she would find Jordan Catalano's number? Then she would call him up and tell him to back off! Abandoning one witch-hunt for another, Annie decided to stalk downstairs and rummage in Mom's purse for her cell. She knew she was being nosey and a snoop but this was a question of divorce! She definitely didn't want to end up like Kayla- wetting the bed and eating keenwa !

V

"Snoopy's stealing your purse, Mom!" Nick's voice made Annie jump and before she had a chance to yell that she was NOT, Mom appeared from the office asking why they weren't doing homework. "Mine's done", replied Nick smugly, "Can I borrow the car and go to Amber's? She needs help with some history essay." Nick's girlfriend Amber always needed help with homework! Annie had once heard Dad refer to Amber as a 'bimbo'. 'Bimbo' meant a pretty blonde girl who never got As at school and wanted to go to beauty college. Although Amber was blonde, Mom said that Dad was being 'cruel' and 'judgmental'. Amber was a nice girl, not super bright but who was by Dad's high standards? Dad maintained that it wouldn't kill Amber to take a few AP classes and if Nick insisted on dating her, shouldn't they both want her to have some academic ambition? Academic ambition was highly overrated according to Mom and life experience and kindness towards your fellow humans were much more important, this last comment Mom emphasized by giving Dad a very pointed look. Annie knew all about Mom's looks- there was the 'sad look' that meant Annie had misbehaved and should feel very guilty, there was the happy, tearful look that meant Nick's team had won a sports trophy or a basketball game and there were strange looks Mom would give Dad when she was mad at him. Or happy. Annie couldn't always tell. Grown-ups could be hard to read. Maybe the yelling didn't matter so much for deciding about divorce, maybe it was the looks you had to watch out for! Annie decided to closely observe Mom and Dad in the future.

"Why were you looking in my purse, Anne?" Mom was calling her 'Anne'- a very bad sign! "Do you need extra money for lunch or something?"

Annie decided to take the easy way out, "No. I was just crying because I had a bad dream and wanted some Kleenex." Annie did her best to appear tearful.

Mom wasn't buying it, "Hmmm. You know there's tissues in the bathroom, right?"

Annie, still feigning tears, wrapped her arms around Mom's waist and began plotting her next move. To her surprise, Mom stroked her hair (something she NEVER did when she was mad) and asked Annie what was going on? She had been acting weird all evening: glancing suspiciously over her shoulder during dinner at Jet lying on the rug, creeping about upstairs after her nap and now this. Was Annie scared of someone or something? "Yes!" Annie thought and suddenly the tears weren't fake anymore, "I'm scared Mom is having an affair with someone named Jordan Catalano, she's going to leave us in his Ferrari and then she and Dad are going to get a divorce!

Instead she just said aloud, "I'm scared about Jet being made a wizard by witchcraft!" Mom burst out laughing! For a really long time! Annie could still feel her shaking with repressed giggles even after she looked up at Mom with her most reproachful pout.

"But that's not possible you silly-billy!" Mom finally began, "Jet is a cat, not Harry Potter!"

"Duh!" thought Annie, "I know Jet is not Harry Potter! But that doesn't stop him being able to be magic or possessed by a witch!" Wizards didn't always have to be human. Mom was very naïve.

"Well, Miss Hermione", Mom kneeled down and looked Annie in the eye, "It's not good to look in my purse without permission. If you need cash, all you have to do is ask!"

"Aha!" thought Annie, "A golden opportunity!" "Does that mean I can use your cell phone to call Kayla too?" she asked magically recovering from her tears. Although she had somehow managed to miss two chances at extra lunch money which she would kick herself for later, Annie was a girl on a mission! Harry Potter and Nancy Drew had nothing on her!

VI

The next phase of said mission involved pretending to call Kayla and then scrolling through Mom's cell phone contact list. Scrolling was hard. Sometimes, your finger went too fast and the list zapped by or you accidentally hit the wrong thing and were suddenly sending an email to Jet's vet or something. Annie was determined to concentrate and not miss the numbers for the letter 'C' and 'J' too. Annie was nothing if not thorough in her pursuit of Mom's divorce-causing correspondent. Mom was back working in her office, so Annie held a one-sided conversation with an imaginary Kayla while carefully looking at the entries first for 'C' and then 'J'… 'Jacqui', 'Jeff' ( Mom's editor at work), 'Jolene' (Annie's friend Liv's Mom), and then 'Jordan'! Proof! All Annie's suspicions had been correct! On TV, once you had gathered all your proof, you next had to speak to the guy and get what was called a 'confession'. Annie knew all about confessions. First the guy (usually a murderer but sometimes a bank robber or a terrorist) said he didn't know anything and he hadn't done anything. Then the lawyer or NCIS guy told him they had proof, then the guy usually started yelling or crying but sometimes he stayed really still and said he wasn't sorry. Annie hoped Jordan wouldn't do that. It would be much better if he did say sorry and that he'd never see Mom again. Annie decided to obtain Jordan's confession. She hit the green button on the screen and listened. The phone rang and rang and rang.

Eventually this guy answered :" Yeah?" He sounded sleepy even though it was only about 8pm and way before Annie's bedtime of 8:30. Was Jordan a napper too? "Yeah?" the voice said again. Silence. Annie was deciding strategy. "Err, hello? …Tino, is that you?"

"Who's Tino?" Annie blurted out without thinking.

"Errr, you're not Tino?"

"No", Annie decided to be bold, "This is Hermione Granger."

"Err, ok. What's up?"

"Are you Jordan Catalano?" Annie asked this in her most British voice to sound like Hermione.

"Yeah. Is this about child support or something ?"

"Eh... , no. How many kids do you have?"

"Two."

"Are you married?"

"Listen, eh, Enemy or whatever, I don't wanna be like rude or anything but you're not selling car insurance are you?"


	2. Chapter 2

What Nick Didn't Know

I

Zigzag drills or backpedaling drills? Nick didn't know which was the hardest part of practice. Coach Wheeler said that he should do more "position- specific" drills to prepare for the game next week, however, so all Nick could do was keep focused and pray his old knee injury didn't start acting up again . The game was against the Wildcats and their star quarterback Kevin Reed was much feared among Nick's teammates. All 6'4", 237 pounds of him. Not that Nick's team, the Crusaders, didn't have an arsenal of their own. Their QB Derrick Johnson was 6'4" too and while Reed had 10 pounds on him, Derrick had more foot speed and a stronger arm. A statistician would tell you the sides were evenly matched so the result was anyone's guess. Except people didn't like to guess in football, people liked to know. It didn't matter if their hypothesis was disproved more times than not, it didn't matter if the first pick on the NFL draft ended up a total bust, it didn't even matter if LA never got a football team again! What mattered was the stats and the stats never lied! Nick didn't know much about stats but he was learning. His Dad had insisted Nick take some AP classes to prove that sports and training weren't interfering with his schoolwork. Nick couldn't care less about AP classes but had decided to take AP Statistics because: 1) His friend Marc had explained that Statistics was basically about composite season averages, point spreads and total career pass yard comparisons and 2) There was serious money to be made in selling Statistical information to gamblers and sports' junkies. Nick needed a sideline if he was ever going to raise enough cash to buy a car. Some clunker needing work would suit Nick just fine, some old Jeep or Ford costing $ 2,000 with about a million miles on the clock would do. Anything was better than having to borrow his Mom's Prius! A Prius was the lamest car ever! Nick didn't know, but he suspected it ran on grapefruit juice and could go for 0 to -60 in 2.4 seconds. The stupid thing was almost impossible to drive on the freeway! Not to mention the fact that only old ladies, guilt-ridden tree-huggers and gay hipsters drove the frickin' things! When Nick was an NFL player and earning big money, he'd buy a Bentley GT3-R or, if he got a really great signing bonus, an Aston Martin One-77. Hell then he could buy both! He'd have them pimped out with chrome caps, bumpers, WiFi and leather interiors with seats customized with his initials. No expense spared! He'd even buy Amber a Range Rover Sport or Porsche Cayenne for the school run if they decided to have kids. Amber was Nick's girlfriend and a cheerleader. She was blonde and hot with a great chassis, body and paintwork. Nick suspected most of the guys on his team wanted to have sex with her. Nick wanted to have sex with her. But Amber was a Christian and wore a purity ring so a test drive would have to wait till after marriage. Nick suspected that Amber would want tons of kids once she was married and sex was no longer a "sin" and "against the teachings of Jesus". Nick didn't know if he wanted kids. His kid sister, Snoopy, was 8 and a pain in the ass! Nick was expected to pick her up from some lame after school sewing club or robotics or something on Monday and Wednesday evenings if he wanted to receive any allowance toward his car fund. Snoppy always asked the weirdest questions that Nick didn't know the answers to. Nick suspected Snoppy was mentally retarded and needed meds or therapy. Nick's grandfather was a psychiatrist and Nick didn't know why 'Bob' (Nick's grandfather didn't allow Nick to call him 'Grandpa' as this was a dangerous validation of the 'paterfamilias' figure that reduced mankind to perpetual infancy or something) hadn't diagnosed Snoppy with paranoia or OCD. The kid was clearly unbalanced and possibly a kleptomaniac. Tonight, Nick had caught her just as she was about to steal cash from Mom's purse. Nick yelled to Mom that Snoppy was stealing. After what Nick had heard at school today, it suited him to draw Mom's attention to Snoppy and her mental instability. The more attention given to Snoppy, the less questioning Nick would get from his parents. Nick wanted to be under the radar at the moment. He didn't know what to do and he needed time to think. He needed to borrow Mom's car (even the Prius would do in his current desperate situation) and drive somewhere quiet to assess available data and the probability of him being in very deep shit.

II

One the things Nick was learning in AP Stats was about the identification of outliers. Outliers didn't fit the rest of the data, they differed from the cluster of results close to the mean and could be seen standing out on the edges of graphs or data tables. Nick was beginning to identify similar outliers among his friends at school. His 'core group' of friends consisted mostly of fellow football teammates like Derrick and Jared, basketball teammates like Marc and a few kids like Luke and Stephanie that he had known since kindergarten. The outliers were friends of friends or flakes who rarely showed up at school and hovered around parties drinking beer and smoking marijuana. One such example was Gregor Costello. Gregor's nickname was 'The Ladybug' because, more likely than not, Gregor could be found crawling all over a huge stash of grass. If you wanted pot, he was your man: Peppermint Kush, Tangerine Haze, even something called Admiral Willie Nelson, if didn't matter. Whatever your favored strain, 'The Ladybug' could get it for you. 'The Ladybug' seemed kinda out of it most of the time and talked about things like 'healing', 'cosmic transcendence' and 'astrological tables' but he could be surprisingly lucid when it came to remembering who owed him money and when. Nick didn't owe him money but 'The Ladybug' was still the reason Nick could be faced with some very serious questioning by his school, his parents and possibly even, the cops. It had all started last summer when Nick had busted his knee during some stupid football camp he had begged his parents to enroll him in. The trainer had proved to be a total dipshit who insisted Nick tackle some kid who was twice his height and at least 244 pounds. Predictably, Nick had been steamrollered by the Giant and unfortunately all his weight and momentum had fallen on his left knee. Intense pain, trips to the doctor and the possibility of months on the bench followed. Nick had been pissed and in a terrible mood for the rest of the summer. The doctor had prescribed him some painkillers which left him feeling angry, tired and constipated. Jared, his team's line-backer, had been injured the previous season and had obtained via his brother and 'The Ladybug' a delicious 'herb' which had eased his pain and made him more 'focused and in harmony with himself'. Jared had offered to fix Nick up with some of this special 'herb'. Nick had agreed (anything was better than continuing like a zombie), and used some of his car fund to pay 'The Ladybug' on time. More similar trades followed. Everything had been going ok till today when two seniors at his school (Brent Davis and Shawn Robinson) were busted for having large quantities of this 'herb' in their lockers. As if that wasn't enough, a bottle of what turned out to be Sizzurp and some other less common 'herbs' were also found. According to rumor, text messaging and Instagram , Davis and Robinson had 1) both been immediately expelled 2) cried like babies in the principal's office and snitched on 'The Ladybug' , at least 3 other seniors and 2 juniors also involved and 3) been lead in handcuffs along the school corridor to waiting patrol cars (this last was backed up by a picture clearly edited and stolen from some ancient movie with the caption 'Live Free or Die High'). Derrick Johnson had texted Nick after European History to warn him that one of those snitched on was none other than Nick himself. "F#*k!" was Nick's response. Why did those two morons have to bring their shit to school anyway? Wasn't there enough time to divide it in a place without teachers, adults and security cameras? How could they be so f#*king stupid? Nick didn't know the answers to any of these questions and if what Derrick said was true, it didn't matter. The probability of Nick ever being free to leave his room (or jail cell!), buy a car, date Amber or have any kind of career in the NFL was zero!


	3. Chapter 3

What Angela Knew

I

"Angela?" Jordan Catalano was on the line. Angela would know Jordan Catalano's voice anywhere. Angela knew everything about Jordan Catalano. She had spent minutes, hours, days, months visualizing the contours of Jordan Catalano's face, the cool vivid blue of his eyes, the fall of his brown locks around his forehead. If Angela suddenly became blind, she could swear that she would know Jordan Catalano's face by touch. Hours spent in the boiler room when she was 15 had made her intimately acquainted with every millimeter of Jordan Catalano's perfectly sculpted brow, his cheeks, his chin, his tongue. There hadn't been too much talking involved during these sessions but, on the occasions when they had spoken, Angela remembered how musical his voice was, how deep, how when he said her name it filled her with all sorts of excited anticipation and longing. And now, when she was 37, Jordan Catalano was on the line talking to her about car insurance? Angela knew it was difficult to replicate the romance and blind infatuation of first love, but had her life really become so prosaic that that same voice that used to send an electric rush down her spine was now speaking to her about something as mundane as car insurance? Angela knew that Jordan's music career hadn't gone as well as he had hoped, but was he really reduced to this? Then Angela had discovered that her own daughter had played this cruel trick on her- Jordan thought he was speaking to a representative of some company named 'Enemy' about rates and premiums, not the daughter of his high school girlfriend. Angela had been mortified but Jordan, with characteristic nonchalance, had laughed it off:"Kids could be tricky", he said. Angela politely inquired after his own kids, Peyton and Joey, wasn't it? They were still living with their mother and he didn't see much of them. How was touring going? Ok, you know. It was cool. It sucked not having his car with him, but the bus was ok. How was Maria, wasn't it? She was staying at her sister's in San Diego but Jordan made it back to see her every few months. Great, great, great, great, it was all great! Angela had exhausted her checklist of polite inquiries about his life since the last reunion. What now? It irked her when he didn't follow up by asking her about HER life! Predictably, as she always did when he didn't respond, Angela had babbled on about Sharon Cherski's divorce, Rayanne Graff's new essential oils for pets business and Rickie Vasquez's latest ready-to- wear line. It seemed like decades before Jordan had interrupted her with a piece of inspired and imaginative repartee: " So, eh, how are you?" Ha! Angela knew it was a commonplace casual question uttered by millions of people billions of times a day in hundreds of languages all over the world , but it still made her suddenly want to burst into tears. Bawling torrents of tears. On the phone. With Jordan Catalano. "How WAS Angela?" Ha! Did Jordan really want to know?

II

A year ago, Angela had discovered her first gray hair. It was Saturday morning. That day she wasn't in a hurry or feeling tired and, for once, Annie wasn't demanding pancakes. Angela was trying to put sunscreen on her face in the bathroom mirror and there it was: the advent of middle-age! 'The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness'. The hair was on the right side of her head along the ridge of her skull in all its mature glory. Angela hadn't been too concerned about it to be honest. She had dyed her hair every few months since she was fifteen, never anything as extreme as the reddish tint she had adopted in high school, but varying shades from ash blonde to something called 'autumn wheat'. At 34 she had finally thought, "Enough!"Her hair had been subjected to countless quantities of peroxide poisoning, treatments and re-tints over the years, it was time to let it retire from its suffering and enjoy some sort of dignified middle-age. Sharon Cherski told her she was in danger of 'letting herself go': first was the abandonment of hair dye, next she would stop waxing or shaving or using make-up! It was all part of what Sharon called "a slippery slope." If Angela wasn't careful, she would end up like Rayanne Graff- denture-wearing, pot-growing, cat-loving, childless! Angela reminded Sharon that she had successfully birthed two children and was in full possession of all her molars but Sharon just shook her head and repeated that it was "a very slippery slope". This comment was the only explanation Angela could find for the dream she had had later that night. She had dreamt she was hurtling down a steep hill near her home at full speed in a boat without oars, tow or any kind of rudder. She was dimly aware that someone somewhere behind her was calling for her to stop but she couldn't even if she had tried. The dream ended with her crashing into something: water, grass, sand? She couldn't tell. She awoke dazed, cold and blinked several times before staring blankly at the alarm clock on her bedside table. 3:36 am. Still three hours before she was expected to get up. Another broken night's sleep! Angela could already feel a headache coming on. She turned huddling further under the duvet and closer to the warm form next to her. Brian's breathing was soft and low. He was lying on his side. Good. She'd never get back to sleep if he was on his back and started snoring. Snoring was one of the most unromantic things about married life. It was something the poets never wrote about. You'd find no 'Ode to Snoring Morpheus' among the works of Shelley or Shakespeare. It didn't inspire sonnets, sculptures or sophists. But, nevertheless, snoring was part of life. It was part of breathing.

III

"Good…. Another deep breath ,please….Good. Let's just check your heart rate now!" Angela hated the clinical coldness and certainty of the hospital. She hated the smell of sterilized swabs, the blinding brightness of the fluorescent lights, the artificial cheerfulness of the nurses. Angela longed for the days when visits to the doctor had meant nothing more than the promise of lollipops after some innocuous flu shot. She'd give anything to return to the time when an awkward conversation with her former pediatrician about birth control was the most distressing thing such visits entailed. Now it was different. Before every trip to the consultant, specialist or counselor, she felt the same bile rising in her stomach, the same horrible void opening at her feet. She felt like a condemned man walking up a scaffold with that ominous coil of rope tightening around his neck. She could feel it AND she could see it, waving closer and closer to her, beckoning her on even though her feet felt heavy, leaden and didn't want to budge. Angela inhaled deeply and looked out the window while the consultant placed the leads on her chest. They may as well have been a noose. She turned her head away from the sight of them and looked out on a small patch of grass in front of the building. It was covered almost entirely by masses of leaves that had fallen from two trees standing on either side of the entrance. Crimson, golden, brass, bronze autumn in all its triumphant richness had been stamped and soaked on the ground by successive showers of rain. Evidently the same clinical efficiency so present inside the building wasn't applied to garden maintenance outside it! Angela was relieved. Maybe the leaves would survive the threat of the gardener's rake longer than she would survive radiation therapy, chemotherapy and whatever else medical science chose to throw at her! After she had been poked and prodded, dissected and discussed by Dr. Lopez and his nursing staff who she knew deep down were good, decent people inoculated against, but not naturally immune to human empathy, she made her way unsteadily to the bathroom and sat for several minutes in one of the stalls trying to gather her courage. This had become a ritual of hers: here in the neutral territory of a public restroom she would think and cry and let out all the feelings she wanted before returning back to her life and the farce of 'acting like everything was normal'. After several minutes, she left the stall, looked in the mirror, took off her wig and tried to imagine herself in thirty years: an elderly woman of 67 with a full gray mane, deepening wrinkles around her fading aqueous aged eyes , wider crevices between her cheeks and mouth. She wished with all her soul that that woman would have a chance to exist! She wanted that woman to have all the memories Angela knew that woman ought to have : Annie's graduation from college, Nick's first game as a pro-footballer, countless boring Thanksgivings at her mother's house. She wouldn't even mind that woman having to endure the memory of menopause and multiple Christmases at her father's condo with the ever-annoying Hallie! When Dr. Lopez had first told her of her diagnosis, she had come here and vomited. She had been disgusted and repulsed by her own body's reaction to the news. Her own weak, mortal body! It had let her down! It was still needed !Its shoulders were needed to comfort Annie when her heart was broken for the first time, its hands were needed to applaud Nick when he got signed to the NFL, its waist was needed for Brian to put his arms around while he slept. She still needed it! She needed its fingers to help her type the article on childhood homelessness she was preparing for Jeff, she needed its legs to scale to Machu Picchu once the kids were done with college and they could afford a vacation, she needed its senses to observe the coming seasons, years and decades she knew she had a right to experience! Exhausted by her own self-loathing, she had sat by the toilet, wiped her mouth, and held her palms together in the closest gesture to prayer Angela had ever performed in all her adult life. "Please God, if you exist, please God let me live! Let me survive this !" Angela knew it was a simple prayer repeated by countless people before her -pathetic and hopeful and hopeless all at the same time! Angela wondered why we humans only prayed to God when we wanted something? How selfish, how greedy we were for life! She wished she'd said more thankful prayers in HER life, prayers of gratitude for all she had rather than of fear for all she'd lose. It was too late for repentance now though, God would be merciful or He (She?) would not be. Angela, an agnostic all her adult life, was now dependent on the whim of an uncertainty!


	4. Chapter 4

What Brian Didn't Know

I

Brian didn't know how he was going to stop himself from strangling Nick when he finally tracked him down, but he supposed he would have to try. Of all the times for Nick to do such a selfish, stupid, idiotic thing, this was the worst! Earlier tonight while Angela was asleep upstairs getting some much-needed rest, the door bell had rung. Mitch Johnson was on their porch returning a garden hose he had borrowed and asking if Brian had heard about the expulsion of two kids from 'De La Salle High' that day? No, Brian hadn't. Did he know that the PTA had called an emergency meeting for tomorrow evening to discuss what had happened and help implement a new anti-drugs policy? No, Brian didn't. The PTA could go to hell for all Brian cared at the moment! He had tried to be civil and courteous , though. After all, Mitch was just another decent, concerned parent trying to give his kid the best possible start in life. Mechanically Brian had tried to appear interested while Mitch had told him about how the local police community liaison officer was scheduled to speak, how Principal Carlson would be there , how Mitch intended to cross-examine that guy over why the school had turned into Ciudad Juarez in the space of two years. Brian nodded his assent. Mitch's plan sounded totally justified. Would Brian be there to interrogate Carlson too? No, Brian was sorry, but now wasn't the best time for him. He had some projects due at work. He was sure he'd fully agree with whatever course the PTA chose. Mitch thanked him but hesitated before descending their steps toward his car. Eh, Mitch didn't want to bring this up, it was awkward, but did Brian know that Nick's name had been given to Carlson as one of Gregor Costello's regular customers? Brian didn't know. Who was Gregor Costello again? Mitch had mentioned that name a few minutes ago, hadn't he? Oh, yeah - the drug kingpin responsible for supplying the two expelled kids! No, Brian didn't know! Had drugs been found on Nick too? Was he on the verge of being kicked out of school? After exchanging a few more words with Mitch, Brian had closed the door and stood in the hallway listening to the silent house. It was 10:30, long after Annie's bedtime, but he had still found her nestled beside her mother in their bed when he went upstairs. Obviously whatever dispute they had had over Angela's cell phone before he returned from work this evening had been resolved. Angela hadn't wanted to discuss it, but Annie had told him she was glad he and Mom weren't getting a divorce and Mom didn't like Ferraris. Brian had gazed at her in perplexed bewilderment. Was Annie really his blood? The child was a curious study in chaos and caprice. One minute she was charging around the house saying she was Cinderella , the next she was charging a football field narrowly missing a serious collision! In that she resembled her mother which, for Brian, definitely wasn't a criticism. Angela was a whirlwind of emotion, sentiment and confusion in the otherwise logical, rational world of Brian's ordered existence. He needed her. Without her, life would be unspeakably gray, dull and grim and what was worse, Brian wouldn't know that it was gray, dull and grim. He wondered how he would have turned out if the Chase family hadn't moved into the house across the street when he was four. He didn't know, but professionally he probably would have done much the same things: straight As through middle and high schools with calculus, computing, camps, museums, bullies, then Computer Science at CMU followed by a career as a software engineer with Apple and any number of post grad degrees, seminars, awards, and conferences. He probably would have bought the same Jeep Cherokee, gotten a mortgage for a similar Craftsman-style house in Oakland or Squirrel Hill and married a girl like Delia Fischer. A nice, sweet, pleasant girl who was reasonably attractive and who, more importantly, seemed to find him attractive. Thus far his life would have been identical. What was missing was barely perceptible to an outsider but a void the size of the San Andreas Fault within his heart. If Brian hadn't met Angela, hadn't climbed trees with Angela, hadn't played catch with Angela, hadn't loaned books, sweaters or bikes to Angela, hadn't watched Angela, hadn't waited for Angela, hadn't obsessed over Angela, hadn't longed for Angela, hadn't loved Angela, Brian was sure he wouldn't really have lived.

II

Nick's room was empty. Nick's room was a black hole of cosmic disorder from which no objects could escape. As usual, it was a mass of discarded protein bar wrappers, sweaty sports' gear, old iPads, school books and abandoned Hot Wheels Nick had used as model players to plot moves for imaginary basketball games when he was 8. The only part of the space where some kind of order existed was on the shelves over his desk where Nick displayed his sports' trophies and medals. There were also team photos of Nick from 1st grade right up to last year's 'Crusaders' State Championship win. Brian tried to trace out the rate of change from Nick's bright smiling innocent face in the first photo to the drug-taking scowling young man in the last. How had he missed this metamorphosis? The past year was easy enough to explain: Brian had been too preoccupied by Angela's illness, doctor's visits and insurance paperwork to pay much attention to Nick. At Angela's insistence, they had decided not to tell the kids until it became an absolute necessity. Brian didn't know if this was the right course to take. Wouldn't they notice her lethargy, headaches and constant nausea? Wouldn't they notice when she started to lose her hair and was absent from home on hospital visits? Angela said she would take measures, buy a wig, tell the kids she had started working at 'The Commentator' main offices again and if they asked about her tiredness or vomiting, she would say it was because of some HRT treatments she was taking for premature menopause. To Brian's surprise and horror, the kids hadn't asked any questions! They hadn't even seemed to notice the increasing pallor of Angela's cheeks or the frightening thinning of her arms and legs. Annie he could excuse from this inattention, she was only a child of 8 after all, but Nick, no! Nick was a teenager on the brink of manhood apparently so absorbed in his own affairs that he didn't notice that his own mother was …. No! Brian wasn't going to finish that sentence. The point was that Nick, like most teenage boys, was so full of his own arrogant, grandiose plans, blustering and bravado that he was insensible to anything else. Brian couldn't forgive him for this. He didn't know why, but Nick had always slightly disappointed him. He should love the boy unconditionally, shouldn't he? But Nick showed so little focus when it came to academics, he didn't seem to care about grades, college or his future outside of football. Brian had read all about the median retirement age for pro-footballers and the devastating effects of CTE. He was terrified his son would end up some washed-up vegetable addicted to pain killers before he was 40. Angela had told him not to judge the kid too harshly, she was sure he'd be successful at whatever he set his mind to. Angela's blind optimism and faith in Nick's levelheadedness made tonight's information impossible to share with her. With all she was going through, Brian was determined that she must never know anything Mitch Johnson had just told him. Brian didn't know where Nick was, but he would contact him on his cell, arrange to meet him away from the house and plot out his punishment. Two minutes later, Brian sent the following message: "WHERE ARE YOU? TXT ME BACK ASAP! DON'T CALL THE LANDLINE! "

III

Nick was at the Allegheny Observatory. Add trespass to the long list of his offenses. Brian didn't know why he would go there. He had taken Nick there a couple of times when he was younger. Brian didn't know, but he suspected Nick had been bored by astronomy. He had seemed more interested in kicking a soccer ball around on the green out front and asking if Brian had bought him tickets for next week's Steelers game. Christ! The kid really was showing all the signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder when it came to sports! Couldn't he take two minutes away from thoughts of a 6000 square yard piece of turf and Steely McBeam to contemplate the vast outer regions of the universe? Now Nick had chosen to go there. Maybe he thought it was also a spaceport where he could escape the terrestrial consequences of his blazing stupidity? Brian found him sitting on the steps of the building furiously texting on his iPhone - probably still receiving updates on the fate of Costello and his fellow accomplices.

Brian made an effort to be as calm, non-judgmental and collected as he could: "Nick? Look at me. I need to talk to you." His son was no fool. He knew the game was up. The measured, business-like tone of his father's voice was enough to ascertain that much. Nick looked at him with complete, jaded resignation and awaited his fate. "Were you dealing too?" This question shocked Brian. He hadn't intended to accuse his son of that.

"No, it was just for myself. Listen, Dad, I'm sorry….I didn't mean to…."

Brian didn't have time for this. "Ok. Here's what we'll do. If the police or Principal Carlson decide to pursue this, I'll speak on your behalf and try to arrive at some sort of favorable solution. If you're suspended or expelled from school , we'll have to try to enroll you somewhere else . I'll pay any fines and you can consider your allowance as forfeit until they're paid back. You , firstly, will never, NEVER Nick, go anywhere near drugs or this kid Costello again! Understand? Secondly, you're to confine yourself to school (hopefully Nick could still go to school!), the library and limited, VERY limited, sports' practices for the next three months. No car, no Amber, no parties. Understood? And thirdly, and this is very important Nick, your mother is not to know anything about this. EVER! Do you hear me?"

Nick heard. He heaved in a breath, stood up, and tried to shake his father's hand. A deal was, after all, a deal. Brian had never been capable of hugging his son. Deciding on somewhere between the two extremes of cold corporate distance and cloying PDA, Brian lightly patted Nick on the shoulder and turned to walk back down the steps. He didn't know, but his son watched him retreat under the glimmering starlight with tears in his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

What No One Knew

I

There was no doubt that Jet was the best mouse hunter on all of Shady Street. There was definitely no doubt in Jet's mind, in that stunning Persian Pandora's mind and thanks to some expert gashes from Jet's lethal left talon, there was certainly no doubt left in that upstart tabby's mind! Boy, had Jet enjoyed teaching that one a lesson! How dare a creature no more than a kitten attempt to dispute Jet's patch of turf! Couldn't he smell Jet's scent on every tree from here to the Brook? Jet sniffed the air suspiciously. The Brook was one place he preferred to avoid- he wasn't particularly fond of having his pristine coat soaked and there was one very persistent and annoying Jack Russell there who always barked when Jet skulked by on the scent of some unfortunate future victim. Jack, or whatever his name was, obviously thought the Brook was his turf too! Stupid mutt! More lessons would have to be taught! Jet momentarily paused and assessed the damage done to the flesh around his luminously mesmerizing yellow eyes by that rodent of a tabby. The wound required some serious licking and detained Jet for several moments before he opened his eyes again and detected a slight, blurred movement at the window of his human employers. Instantly his silky ears pricked up, his perfect pupils dilated and he honed in on the area before him. The light had been getting brighter for several minutes now so that could mean only one thing- breakfast! With an agility and swiftness that much belied his 8 human years, Jet leaped onto the sill and demanded instant admittance by scratching the window paint with his slightly bloodstained claws. Clearly Jet needed a visit to the nearest grooming salon too! That could wait till after breakfast, though. Why weren't those humans responding to his summons? How on Earth had such a languid, vapid species managed to become so dominant? Really! They didn't even seem to appreciate the many trophies Jet deposited on their doormat or the long hours he dedicated to testing the softness of their mattresses! Sometimes Jet was tempted to vacate the premises altogether and abandon those humans to an instant mouse invasion. They would only have themselves to blame! He was sure he could find more appreciative employers among some more mature human females on Ophelia Street! Perhaps they would have cream- a delicious frothy substance Jet had once enjoyed at Pandora's. Mmmmmm cream, milk, tuna! What was taking these creatures so long? Scratch! Scratch! Scratch! What kind of defective hearing mechanism did such unskilled hunters even possess? Finally, after what seemed like dog years, the mature human male of the lair approached the kitchen door and ushered Jet in. After such a delay, the helpings had better be good this morning- none of that 'Friskies' muck!

II

Luckily for Jet, who always possessed exquisite good luck, the mature human female of the lair was also present in the kitchen. This meant that Jet would be given a meal of tuna that adequately compensated him for his night's work. His bowl had already been placed on the tiled floor and he was breathing in its intoxicating aroma when he suddenly heard the female say: "Give him a little of the salmon too." SALMON! Oh! My! God! Salmon was the most scrumptious, divine, extraordinary food Jet had ever tasted! He had been lucky enough to taste it once when some of the humans' evening meal had fallen on the tiles, but they had never purposely allowed him to sample its culinary raptures before! Had they heard about his bloody victory over the tabby? Jet didn't know but, whatever the reason, he pledged his undiluted devotion to the mature human female. What a wonderfully generous employer she was becoming! Up to now, Jet was forced to admit, he hadn't been entirely taken with her: she had always whooshed him off his bed when he was wrapped up snugly in his quilt, scolded him for leaving half-dead trophies on the doormat or smelled of lavender, lemon and other noxious substances that he detested. Jet had been much more fond of that other mature human female lacking authentic incisors who visited his employers every week. SHE had smelled delicious- 'Peppermint Kush' he believed her scent was called. She had also known how to caress him in all the most pleasurable places and defend him from that malicious little immature human female who also inhabited the lair. Really! That kitten was the very limit! She seemed to regard Jet as her toy whom she could dress in human clothes and wheel about in some vehicle she called 'Cinderella's Carriage'. The indignity of such ill-treatment and disrespect was more than Jet could bear! He generally sought to hide from the immature human female in his bed or under the stairs, but she sometimes managed to hunt him down with the threat of the dreaded 'dress up'. She wasn't here this morning though- the mature human female sat at the kitchen table while the mature human male dished out Jet's unexpected luxurious delicacy. While he was dining, Jet was completely absorbed in his meal, but afterwards, while he sat in utter ecstasy and satiety licking his perfect ebony lips, he took a moment to study his employers: they appeared to be talking about flowers (hideous toxic things in Jet's not-so-humble opinion). The mature human female said that she didn't want any. "Quite correct!" thought Jet. She didn't want Annie to go to the 'Service' either. 'Service'? Jet believed these were gatherings humans held in large buildings like the one across the street. Jet was very fond of stalking magpies on its roof! 'Annie', of course, was the malicious immature human female. He wouldn't want her ANYWHERE near him either! The mature human male didn't say anything. He appeared to be looking down at the gray tiles (as if THEY were worthy of intense study!) When he did look up, he had the same frozen, fixed, terror-stricken expression Jet had often observed on his prey the second before he pounced. The male clearly had an intense fear of flowers and the malevolent kitten. "Quite correct!" thought Jet again. The mature human female seemed to smell the male's fear- she got up from the table, crossed the kitchen and began to pet his fur (hideous and curly and not a patch on Jet's luxuriant black coat!). Then she began to lick his lips in the most unsanitary manner! Didn't the foolish creature realize she could catch worms from him? Jet didn't mind licking the stunning Pandora's lips, but then she was always immaculately groomed and thoroughly vaccinated by that butcher of a vet. The vet was a 'butcher' because he had taken away all Jet's libido and his ability to sire perfect ebony-ivory kittens who would undoubtedly have won ALL the prizes at the 'Cat Fancier's Association's Annual Show'! What an injustice to the feline community! The two mature humans didn't seem to notice Jet or the outrages he was so frequently forced to endure. The sooner he got through his nine lives and was reincarnated as a Godolphin Arabian stallion, the better! The humans continued licking each other in the same unhygienic manner till Jet decided he had had enough and pranced off in search of his favorite napping cushion. No one knew, but Jet was more convinced than ever that those humans were a very strange animal….


End file.
